She is now registered, licensed and insured. Meaning I could drive it everywhere... if it ran correctly. When CCN returned the car to me they said they were having troubles making it idle. Pull the choke out and it'll start fine but it won't hold an idle. They also said that the ignition timing was so far out that even at full adjustment the timing mark wouldn't show up.

So, off came the cam cover again to double check that my valve timing is spot on.

After making sure that cam timing was as perfect as I could get it, I ripped out the old points and coil and put new connectors on all the old wires, a new condenser and a new points set in.

After readjusting everything, my ignition timing was spot on. The car ran pretty fantastically but it still refused to idle. So, the carbs came off again and were cleaned completely one more time. Put them back together and now she idles like a champ... but won't start when it's cold. Warm and hot starts are not a problem at all, but when the motor is completely cold, it just refuses to start. When it is running, when you press the accelerator, it stumbles while below 2,000 rpm. Get above 2k and it runs beautifully.

Guess I still have some more work to do on the carbs. Maybe I installed something incorrectly or just don't have them set right. Either way, I'll eventually figure it out (I'm open to any ideas or suggestions). In the mean time, I snapped a few more pics of it outside!

Congrats on passing the inspection. I hope you can get it running properly soon. I am very inexperienced with carbs but, as mentioned by ill-minded, make sure all other aspects of the engine are good. I will say that I do work at an auto parts store and MANY MANY times when we have customers try to rebuild old carbs they are not very successful simply because the carbs are so old and worn that there is play in the throttle plate shafts of little cracks in the main bodies etc. It seems you were pretty thorough when you did yours but did you notice anything like that?

Well, I decided to have another crack at figuring out what was up with my starting issues. I double checked the timing and it was spot on, I checked the gap on the points and that was within spec, and I didn't have a compression gauge, so I just prayed that my head gasket wasn't toast. Then, I decided to take a look at the choke on the carbs. When you pull the choke, there is a cam on the choke plate that rotates and pushes on a lever. That lever than pushes on the throttle plates, cracking them open.

When the choke isn't pulled there should be approximately 1.5 mm of space between the cam and the lever. Also, when the engine is fully warmed up, if the choke is pulled, the revs shouldn't climb past 4,500. Well, on my carbs there was approximately 0 mm of clearance between the cam and the lever and when you pulled the choke the revs would rocket past 5,000 rpm. So I adjusted the lever tip by bending it down a bit. I overshot a little much and opened the space up to about 2.5mm (oops). I would have had to remove the carbs to be able to bend it back up, so I left it as was, pulled the choke lever all the way out and gave the engine a crank. It fired up almost instantly! It idled like a champ and the choke didn't cause the revs to rocket away. After the engine was warmed up, I pulled the choke back out and the revs only climbed as high as 4,000 rpm, right within spec! After a little adjusting of the pilot screws and the high speed screw, it was running beautifully.

The only problem that remains is that my accelerator pump on the bottom of the carb is borked. Not sure why, but pushing the throttle doesn't move the accelerator pump lever any at all. I reckon it needs a new diaphragm and a new spring, so that's on the list. Other than the slight stumble between idle and 2k rpm caused by the lack of working accelerator pump, she runs every bit as fantastic as I had hoped!

So, now that she ran well, it was time to address the window rubber.

As you can see, the window used a type of chromed plastic in the rubber. Well, this plastic shrunk over time, causing to fit terribly and to look awful. So, my goal was to pull it all out. The problem on the front was that the rubber was so brittle that removing the trim caused the rubber to break away. So, I decided to pull the trim out, then use a knife to flatten out the rubber.

After I had the trim out and the excess rubber sliced down, I ran over it all with 120 grit sand paper to smooth the rubber out. Probably not the best solution, but it looks much better and I didn't adversely affect the sealing of the window.

I think it makes a huge difference being all black.

The rear for some reason still had some pliability in it so I was able to remove the trim without having to slice off the excess rubber.

So, now that I had a properly running and registered car, it was time for me to address a few things that were bothering me. So I hopped in and headed down to Classic Car Nagoya to raid their parts car. I came back with these:

My little trim pieces that sit behind the door handle were both cracked and broken.

The pieces I lifted from the parts car weren't quite as black, but they were both very solid.

Installed, I think it looks much better!

The cigarette lighter needs a bit of cleanup, but it looks a lot better than not having anything there!

My Life actually had proper three point seat belt mounts in the frame, but it was just rocking lap belts. Even the buckle had the little attachment for the shoulder belt. I couldn't find any proper Honda shoulder belts at CCN (the parts car used winder belts), so I dug through their collection of seat belts until I found some shoulder belts that would fit. They're a little long, but they sung up well and look pretty good! The added safety is also a plus in a car this small. I'd much rather have a bruise across my chest instead of digging my face out of the windshield. Please excuse the terrible picture, the sun was quickly going down when I finished getting everything installed. I'll grab a better picture the next time I get some free time in the daylight!

I'm stoked to be driving this thing as a daily, it's going to make my commute to work and back hugely entertaining!

how are the inspections for a vehicle of this age in japan? it seems like common knowledge or common hype that after a certain mileage is reached that it becomes pretty difficult to pass inspections for older cars in japan . is this the case? very nice little vehicle.

79cord, it is indeed quite the attention getter! It's quite a lot of fun cruising around and having random people point and smile!

sh1ntaox, inspections in Japan are weird. Classic cars still has to pass all the standard inspection procedures and the inspection place is particularly harsh in some areas, like if the tires stick out past the fenders by so much as a millimeter or the ride height is too low, it's an instant fail. However, they're pretty lax in some other areas, such as with my Mitsubishi it was leaking so much transmission fluid out the rear seal that the entire bottom of the car was covered and they still passed it. I think they mostly focus on the main visual bits and any little mechanical problems they tend to let slide. It's not so much that it's difficult to get an older car to pass, it's just that older cars require a lot of work and most people don't have a garage or the will to do their own work, so it gets expensive quick when you're asking a shop to handle it all for you.

Alright! I still had some work that needed to get done to the car before it was in tip top daily shape. So, I spent last Saturday getting to work!

I ordered quite a few parts again.

Among them was a new diaphragm for the accelerator pump on my carbs, which meant that the carbs had to come back off. I'm getting quite adept at installing and removing these things. Once I had the carbs off, I decided it was time to clean up the sure-to-be-leaking goopy mess on the intake manifold.

Apparently, the previous owner didn't get new O-Rings to seal the manifold, so they just filled it full of goop and hoped that it worked. I scraped it all nice and clean, popped in my two new O-Rings and installed it back on the vehicle. Next up was the accelerator pump diaphragm. Easy enough to change and something I should have done long ago. You can see that the old one was truly done.

Next, I needed to solve my cooling issues. The thermo switch to my fan wasn't working and I had it rigged up with a manual switch until I got around to properly installing a new thermo switch. The switch itself is installed right up under the points housing. Since the screws holding the points to the housing are rounded out, I can't remove the housing. So, instead I removed the radiator, battery and all the radiator hoses and got to the sensor from an angle on the bottom side. Took a little persuasion, but I got it. The new sensor has a smaller threaded area but came with an adapter. Very nice quality!

It was then time to start putting it all back together. I ordered up some new upper and lower radiator hoses but the bypass hose that goes from the lower radiator pipe to the thermostat housing was truly finished. I'm surprised it wasn't already leaking. So, I went to the local motorcycle shop and picked up a replacement that was close enough in shape and size.

All new hoses!

And the replacement from the motorcycle shop.

The car ran like a top after all that! The engine responds much better with the new accelerator pump, she starts in just a few turn overs and the fan kicks on exactly like it's supposed to now! The only problem was that on Sunday night, the engine was getting louder and louder until finally it was so loud I was embarrassed to drive it. I figured it was a hole in the exhaust so I pulled the system off and was greeted with this:

Ya, it just straight broke in half! I knew that that particular area of the exhaust was rusty and not long for this world as it already had some alarming holes in it that I filled with some exhaust repair stuff. So, I pulled it completely apart, cleaned up as much of the rusty metal as I could, sliced it off, created some sleeves out of some old CL350 Scrambler exhaust pipes I had laying around and welded it all up.

The welds are ugly, nasty and leak like crazy, but it was the best I could do given the limited time I had and the immense amount of rust I was trying to work around. Now, instead of running open pipe, I'd say 95% of exhaust is finding its way to the muffler. The problem is that it was tweaked ever so slightly when I was welding it together as I couldn't get the car into the garage so I had to weld the system off the car. It doesn't fit quite right and the tweaked nature will probably fracture my welds or rip another, rustier spot in the pipe. It should last long enough for me to find a better alternative, though. This weekend I'm going to jack up the Life parts car at CCN and see what shape the exhaust is in on that little guy.

I spent most this weekend working on my Isuzu Bellett but I did set some time aside to deal with a problem that's been bothering me for a while. The car originally came with fender mirrors, but when the previous owner repainted the vehicle, they filled in the holes for the fender mirrors and put some door mirrors on. When I bought the car, it had no mirrors on it at all and some screws in the doors to fill the holes for the door mirrors.

As you can see, this looks awful. So I removed the screws, cleaned up the black silicon, masked off the holes and then filled them with Ivory colored bathroom sealant. They aren't perfect, but they turned out pretty good!

That's a far cry better than what was there and from a distance, they nearly disappear.

I'm very pleased with how they turned out. I still need to deal with the exhaust, but I'm waiting until I can get my hands on some quality piping for that.

In reference to registration criteria as well drivers license. do you have to be a resident to get a license, registration and insurance? Is it possible to purchase a vehicle and drive it without being a resident? I had heard you talk about your girlfriend taking care of some paperwork for getting the car together and obviously this seems to be a great help to have someone who knows the process. I have seen quite a few really nice older vehicles on auction in tokyo and am wondering if buying one registering and driving one is something that may be accomplished without being a full time resident.

I have a Honda n360 that has the same type of carburator and fuel pump and some other stuff like your Honda Life. Where did you get the rebuild kit for the Kein carburator? I have been triyng to find some of those kits for some time and i just can't find them .

In reference to registration criteria as well drivers license. do you have to be a resident to get a license, registration and insurance? Is it possible to purchase a vehicle and drive it without being a resident? I had heard you talk about your girlfriend taking care of some paperwork for getting the car together and obviously this seems to be a great help to have someone who knows the process. I have seen quite a few really nice older vehicles on auction in tokyo and am wondering if buying one registering and driving one is something that may be accomplished without being a full time resident.

Sorry about the delay in response! I completely forgot about this thread, haha. One of the necessary requirements to doing what is called a "meigi henko (name change)" is a piece of paperwork called a "juminhyou (proof of address)". The juminhyou contains your name and address and is used by the DMV to put the new "shaken-sho (title)" into the new owner's name. The only way to get a juminhyou is to go to the city government office where you live and register there. The other thing that you have to do for non-kei cars is go to the police station and submit the appropriate paperwork (the name eludes me at the moment) showing that you have a place to park the car. The police then come to your residence and inspect the parking space to ensure that it is indeed large enough.

In short, you absolutely need an address if you are going to register a car and in order to get an address you need a place of permanent residence, which means you need employment and a work visa. The other option is to get in tight with a shop and have them register the car in their name and at their parking spot. You then pay them a rental fee every month and essentially rent the car from them. This can work, but it's also a bit sketchy as even though you paid for the car, you technically do not own it and the shop can screw you quite easily.

Now, just buying the car without registering it or driving (such as purchasing a car to export) is a completely different story. That is entirely possible if you are not a resident, although a bit of a pain.

franciscoasilva wrote:

I have a Honda n360 that has the same type of carburator and fuel pump and some other stuff like your Honda Life. Where did you get the rebuild kit for the Kein carburator? I have been triyng to find some of those kits for some time and i just can't find them .

First things first, here's some more pictures of the little Life amidst the Kei Party!

Alright, so I haven't updated this thread in a while for two main reasons. One, the little Life is my daily driver and she performs those duties fairly admirably, warranting little in the way of updates. Two, well, she hasn't been performing her duties admirably as of late. I've been battling brake issues with the old girl. Just the front left drum, but no matter what I've tried, it's leaked like a sieve.

Here's the old girl next to the Mazda Carol waiting her turn to get her brakes worked on.

Finally, after replacing every part in the entire front left system (shoes, wheel cylinder, pistons, cups, pipe, fittings - which required a re-flare, bleeder valve) I think I got it mostly sorted. It's held good brake pressure for two days now and that's a record when compared to the last month, haha.

At any rate, I sat down Sunday when I was working on her and I just leveled with the old girl. I said, "Listen baby, if you work, keep brake pressure and have reliably working brakes, I'll buy you something nice." Well, she seems to be working, so it was time to go shopping.